office wildlife

(editor's note: I know the photos below break my layout. I don't care. They're too good to crop down, in my humble opinion.)

Yesterday, as I walked in to the office, I noticed a large raptor hanging out in a tree near the back door, where I usually enter. After some hesitation, and pointing him/her out to someone else entering the building, I grabbed my camera.

I suspect the raptor in question is a relative of the one that hung out on the overhang while I took pictures from inside last spring sometime, but I can't be sure. I want to say they're both red-tailed hawks, but I haven't looked into it far enough to be certain.

Here's last year's visitor:


Here's this year's visitor (unfortunately backlit, so you can't see his/her markings that well):




S/he eventually tired of my clicking away below him/her, and flew off, leading to my favorite shot of the morning:

weather confusion

On Monday, we hit a record high for the day, at 76 degrees. Then yesterday, we had snow flurries that didn't just fall--they blew sideways. I woke up this morning to find a decent few inches of fluffy snow that I had to dig my car out of.

Couldn't it just pick one?

ice day 2

Left this morning to find that the ice accumulation from yesterday is still around. Amazing. And still beautiful, in places layers thick, and in others, melting in the sun. I'm hoping I can use lunch today (nothing else on the docket: my usual Friday yoga is on "break" and I have no packages to send or errands that have to be run--a near-miracle) to go take some pictures, but I suspect the sun may have taken care of it all by then.

Much in sunlight on the drive in was gone or currently dripping. The shadows, though, were full of white glistening. Spindly bushes became crystalline fragility. I imagined walking through them might cause a sudden in-unison shattering, fragments bursting upwards, glittering balefully as they fell. Many of the powerlines were layered thick, frozen mid-drip all along their lengths.

A colleague, walking in with me, also commented on this morning's beauty. I noticed the magnolia (I think?) next to the back steps had thick buds, all of them coated. I commented to her that every year, I see that happen and say that can't be good for the tree, but every year, the tree somehow survives it, so it can't be that bad for it either.

She laughed with me, then mentioned that I seemed to have my name back. Within the last week or so, I sent an office-wide email signed "Anne, the writer formerly known as Anna" as a bit of a joke. People I don't know very well in the office have been gently ribbing me about it ever since. But I figured, since the one I was most concerned about confusion with (since we had the same job description, team, many of the same meetings, and offices right next to each other) had just left, I might as well take it back. Not that the original switch had bothered me in any way, though at least one person has since confessed that it made him uncomfortable. But: so be it. That little stint/phase/whatever seems to be over anyway, though my boss continues to call me Anna, which somewhat puzzles me, though he did ask if that was okay first. The plaque on my desk still reads Anna, but that's the only remnant left. To folks outside the office that ask, I usually explain the old potential confusion, or just shrug and call them interchangeable to me. The Danish pronunciation of my name is closer to Anna than Anne anyway, so I had gotten used to it that way, at one time. So "interchangeable" is somewhat accurate, if not the whole story.

I listened to my newest mix on the way in, and I'm pretty satisfied. A few transitions need tightening up, but I'm much happier with it now that I've discovered why the original draft was giving me such deja vu: I had included a total of four songs from previous mixes, unknowingly--three from one disc alone. I guess that proves that I like those songs, but since the last mix suffered from being played-out in my mind, hopefully replacing those songs will help this disc avoid personal obsolescence.

Hopefully.

ice day

Today was one of those covered-in-ice days where being in your car is surreal. You glide past a hushed and ghostly world, fully encased in refractive, solid water.

These days fascinate me. I love seeing how things look in ice. The bowing of the trees under their weight. The dripping as things start to melt. As long as I can walk without worrying about slipping (and drive without worrying about sliding), I adore them.

I wish I'd gotten a chance to go out today during lunch with my camera, but unfortunately, my lunch was eaten by two publications coming back from the printer and needing to be proofread, and then phone duty thereafter, and then a meeting after that, and then a few things that needed to be fixed post haste on the website, and then it was too dark to bother.

Many of my days end up like that. But very few are so dangerously pretty to start with.

quick-like:

My boss has taken to calling me "Anna-banana." It's kind of disturbing to hear that out of your superior, when to you, that name is something your relatives called you when you were quite young.

Also: the avocado tree I've been growing in my office is now taller than me. Taller than me in my clogs. Probably taller than any of my friends, if I were to hazard a guess. And it finally decided to branch out: it's got three branches, and is still going up.

A colleague that rarely visits my office finally noticed it. Her immediate reaction: "Why do you have a tree in your office?" (said with no malice, just amazement). I mentally scrolled through: "because I have a tree in my office" (poking good-natured fun), "because I like it," and "because I can," before I arrived at "I grew it from a seed. I think it's neat to see how tall it'll get. I've got one at home, too, which isn't nearly as tall. I think they like the light better here." Much more politic, no less honest, but for some reason it made me feel like I was talking down to her. I hope it didn't sound that way, because I certainly didn't mean it like that.